2019 Crop season in review

[RWS]

I could have easily doubled the size of that list.  People all over the country are writing to me and telling me how bad things are in their areas, and ultimately all Americans will feel the pain of this crisis because all of us will soon be paying significantly higher prices for food at the grocery store.

https://dcdirtylaundry.com/officials-are-using-the-word-disaster-to-describe-the-widespread-crop-failures-happening-all-over-america/

The articles keep coming.  I sure am glad I grow a garden almost year round.  I sure am glad I can and freeze the excess.  I sure am glad I buy and store what I don't grow.  If you are not doing any food storage preps, let me encourage you into starting right now !

If you grow a garden, then next Spring let me encourage you to plant some extra..  I have been collecting 2019 seeds to store in case seeds  are hard to find in the Spring...  Just a thought..

[8greenbeans]

Growing your own food is the way of the future.

[Abigayle]

Always good to keep extra non-hybrid seeds in a dry container in the freezer.  With the extremes in weather this year, it might be difficult to get some of our favorites next year.  I keep seed from my favorites, but can not resist trying some new ones each year. I like Southern Exposure and Johnnys, but do order from other places.  Normally, I try to find my seed for the next year now, before the catalogs get delivered.  People are thinking about Christmas (well, so am I!).  The seed for 2020 is out there, but if in doubt, ask.

[RWS]

“THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IS FORECASTING 170 POTENTIAL DAILY RECORD COLD HIGH TEMPERATURES MONDAY TO WEDNESDAY,” TWEETED WEATHER CHANNEL METEOROLOGIST JONATHAN ERDMAN. “A LITTLE TASTE OF JANUARY IN NOVEMBER.”

https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/11/12/are-you-ready-for-a-catastrophically-cold-winter-heres-what-the-media-isnt-telling-you/

So far in 2019, there have been more than 200 days without a single sunspot on the sun.

We do not know when solar activity will return to normal, but for now we should all prepare for a bitterly cold winter.

Beyond that, we had better hope that we have not entered another “Maunder Minimum”, because right now we are struggling to feed everyone on the planet even in the best of years.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we remain deeply dependent on the weather.  Even a year or two of bad harvests could potentially be absolutely catastrophic, and the mainstream media will not tell us the truth until it is way too late to do anything about it.

[Abigayle]

Don't know how my intro ended up being posted on the 2019 crop.  Wanted to say that I saw on Fox News the other morning that half the potato crop in the countries two main growing areas (for potatoes), only produced half of its norm.  Also, a major apple crop had to be picked by hand, due to an early frost.  The farmers got together and did it.  They got half out.  Their attitude was "we saved half of it", not, we lost half.  Gotta love our farmers!!!  Friend of mine in Northern WI. told me that many of the farmers up there could not even get a crop in the ground this year.  They sat in rain all spring.  Same thing in parts of Iowa.  Add that to smaller crops being planted as farmers waited to see what would happen with the trade deal (most are in favor of hurting now, for a brighter future tomorrow).  One good book on four season gardening is The New Organic Grower's Four-Season Harvest, Elliot Coleman.  He does garden way up north, but much of what he does can be used anywhere winter means frost!  I got my copy on Thrift Books.